Many known gaming devices provide wild symbols. Wild symbols provide a player with an additional opportunity to obtain winning combinations. The use of wild symbols in gaming devices provides additional excitement and entertainment for players.
In a slot machine having reels, a wild symbol can enable the matching of symbols along a payline to achieve a combination. For example, in a three reel slot machine, the symbols along a payline on the first, second and third reels may be, respectively, a heart, a heart and a wild symbol. If, in the gaming scheme, the gaming device awards a player for a three heart combination, the wild symbol substitutes for a heart and provides the player with that combination.
In one example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,977 discloses a gaming device having a roaming wild symbol. More specifically, this patent discloses a gaming device having a plurality of virtual reels which have a set of symbols. Certain symbol combinations serve as triggering events. When one of these combinations occurs on the reels, a wild card symbol appears on the reels in the form of a graphical image and appears along the reels in a set, predetermined path. As the wild card symbol appears at a location, the symbols transform into the wild card symbol. After each appearance of the wild card symbol, the gaming device determines and pays the player for any winning combination which is the result of the transformation. When the wild card symbol appears at the next adjacent symbol, the symbol previously transformed reverts to its original state.
To increase player enjoyment and excitement, it is desirable to provide gaming devices having new and different wild symbol schemes.